Democrats are pouncing on a 'vile' term that Republican presidential candidates won't stop saying

Former
Florida governor and Republican candidate for president Jeb Bush
greets supporters at a VFW town-hall event in Merrimack, New
Hampshire, August 19, 2015.REUTERS/Dominick Reuter

Following a major loss in the 2012 presidential election —
including a 73-27 decimation among Latino voters — the Republican
National Committee released an official "autopsy"
of what went wrong and how the party could grow.

"If Hispanic Americans perceive that a GOP nominee or
candidate does not want them in the United States (i.e.
self-deportation), they will not pay attention to our next
sentence. It does not matter what we say about education, jobs or
the economy; if Hispanics think we do not want them here, they
will close their ears to our policies,"
the autopsy report said.

More than two years and one campaign later, it's
unclear if the Republican field is fully heeding its own
party's advice.

The term refers to children of non-US citizens who come to
the US explicitly to give birth to children that will
then be granted US citizenship.

The theory among those concerned about the practice is that it
would be easier for the parents to obtain US citizenship
— but US law requires children of noncitizen parents to wait
until age 21 to sponsor family members to legally come to
the US. Those concerns aren't exactly unfounded — federal authorities have amped up enforcement
against the multimillion-dollar, so-called "birth tourism"
business.

And on Wednesday, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) called
for greater enforcement of the border to prevent women from
coming to the US, intending to give birth.

“That’s [the] legitimate side of this," Bush said during a radio
interview in New Hampshire. "Better enforcement so that you don’t
have these, you know, ‘anchor babies,’ as they’re described,
coming into the country."

When pressed in New Hampshire on Thursday about whether the term
was offensive, Bush refused to back down.

"Do you have a better term?" Bush asked a
reporter who questioned his use of the term. "You give me a better term, and I'll use it. I'm
serious."

After Bush's remarks on Wednesday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby
Jindal (R) said that not only was the term "anchor baby" not
offensive — but that he's also "happy" to use it.

Following Trump's lead, eight of the lower-polling candidates
have called for the constitutional right, which most legal
scholars argue is enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the US
Constitution, to be revoked.

Democrats have pounced Republicans' call to end birthright
citizenship. And the repeated use of the "anchor babies"
slur, which some have labeled "vile" and racist, has brought
renewed vigor to their attacks.

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has been relentless,
first attacking Bush on Twitter on Wednesday over the
comments.

The Democratic National Committee has also jumped into the fray,
blasting out statements condemning the term's use.

"The phrase anchor babies is so vile in Latino politics that we
don't even have a word for it in Spanish," Pablo Manriquez, the
director of Hispanic Media at the Democratic National
Committee, told Business Insider.

"It is unconscionable that he and his fellow GOP presidential
nominees follow Trump down the slippery slope of criminalizing
children — let alone with such a shamelessly foul term."

As The New York Times has reported, Latino voters
are expected to make up 11% of the 2016 electorate. Former
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) won only 27% of
Latino voters in 2012, a number that was particularly devastating
because of the concentration of Latino voters in key swing states
like Colorado.

Republican
presidential candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio, (R-Florida) during an
event hosted by the Foreign Policy Initiative, August 14, 2015,
in New York.AP

Top Republican political strategist Liz Mair, who advised
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), told Business Insider it
might have been smarter for Bush to focus on
border security. But she said that the use of the term "anchor
baby" won't be as damaging as Romney's high-profile call for
immigrants living in the US without permission to "self-deport."

"'Self-deportation' implied a lack of sympathy for a full 12
million people and their American offspring. 'Anchor babies'
implies a disdain for a much smaller group of people, and, by the
way, one that probably encompasses quite a few non-Hispanic
immigrants who in many cases come from richer countries and who
are more educated ... who want to give their kids access to the
US economy without ever having to deal with our ridiculous and
almost unnavigable immigration system as it applies to better
educated and skilled prospective immigrants," Mair said.

Still, Republicans who are perceived as being a better bet
to win the nomination, however, are treading slightly lighter on
immigration issues.

Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) have both
said that beefing up border security and enforcing current laws
could make altering the 14th
Amendment irrelevant. Sen. Marco Rubio
(R-Florida) and Bush have both reluctantly admitted that they
would not try to alter the 14th Amendment, saying that it would
be difficult.

And for his part, Rubio demurred when asked about so-called
"anchor babies" during an interview on Thursday.

"When I talk about 13 million people in this country
[illegally], I say 13 million human beings," he told CNBC's
John Harwood Thursday.